


They say ignorance is bliss

by chaWOOPa



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Pre-Canon, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 14:31:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaWOOPa/pseuds/chaWOOPa
Summary: Magnus laughs from his belly and then scoops Julia up in a tender embrace. They hug like that for three minutes and fourteen seconds, with Julia’s toes just barely on the ground as Magnus lifts her sturdy frame to rest their foreheads together and they breath each other in.“You would think you were never coming back,” Julia jokes, quietly, so quietly. Steven has left the room to give them this goodbye, their first as a married couple.It isn’t supposed to be their last.





	They say ignorance is bliss

Julia is radiant the day before Magnus is supposed to leave. She is the kind of radiant that, taken out of context, would make one think she was glad Magnus was leaving. 

  
  
Magnus takes her glow and reflects it so they shine like sun. 

  
  
Julia brings him breakfast in bed that morning. 

  
  
"I'm late," she pronounces halfway through his eating. 

  
  
He freezes, fork halfway to his mouth and entirely forgotten. 

  
  
"What?" He asks, barely loud enough to be heard in case he misunderstood. 

  
  
" _ I was supposed to start a week ago _ ," says the most beautiful woman in the world to the luckiest man alive. 

  
  
For what is certainly not the last time that day, Magnus Burnsides-Waxman embraces his glowing wife and cries of happiness, his breakfast sitting half eaten and forgotten on the bed between them.

 

* * *

 

Magnus gives Steven one of his (in)famous bear hugs that makes him grumble about how old he is getting and bids him take care of Julia while he is gone. 

 

Steven rolls his eyes and says Julia will be the one taking care of him. 

 

Magnus laughs from his belly and then scoops Julia up in a tender embrace. They hug like that for three minutes and fourteen seconds, with Julia’s toes just barely on the ground as Magnus lifts her sturdy frame to rest their foreheads together and they breath each other in. 

 

“You would think you were never coming back,” Julia jokes, quietly, so quietly. Steven has left the room to give them this goodbye, their first as a married couple. 

 

It isn’t supposed to be their last. 

 

Magnus chuckles and he lets her rest more fully on her own two feet as one hand comes around her front to rest lightly on her belly. “Gotta say goodbye for two now,” He says privately. 

 

Julia shakes her head but her smile gives her away. “We’ll know for sure tomorrow, but until you get word you can’t tell anyone. It’s bad luck.” 

 

Magnus sighs dramatically, but it’s ruined by the grin that hasn’t stopped glowing since yesterday morning. “I know, Love,” he breathes, then he kisses her. 

 

He leaves ten minutes and fourty-five seconds later, backpack strapped to his back, battle axe strapped to his waist, and smile on his face as he takes a deep breath of the fresh, sea-side air of Raven’s roost. 

 

“I love ya, Jules,” He says as she leans against the open door frame and watches him mount his horse  with the ease of a hundred years practice that his body remembers but his brain doesn’t. He won’t remember what she calls back later, because in this moment he cares more about drinking in the relaxed way she smiles at him from her spot in  _ their  _ doorway. 

 

Magnus leaves town and he doesn’t need the sun that hides behind the gathering clouds to light his way, the love and happiness he soaked up from Julia does just fine. 

 

* * *

 

The courier sent the day after Magnus left, as soon as Julia knew for sure, catches up with Magnus three days into his journey and delivers the best news of Magnus’s life. 

 

A second courier is never sent. 

 

* * *

 

Magnus earns the title Master Carpenter a week after he leaves the Roost, but all he can talk about is his wife and child. The ones for whom the chair was built. Word of the disaster back home doesn’t reach the city he is staying in until after he is gone.

 

He leaves that evening, two days before the rest of his entourage, impatient to see his wife, to congratulate her, to celebrate their new family and start prepping for the child in earnest.

 

He stops well into the night at a small town made smaller by tragedy and the innkeeper gives him a room free when she finds out he is on his way back to the Roost. 

 

Magnus is too busy carving a new, small toy duck for his baby to notice the way the innkeeper’s sad eyes become deeper with emotions she has felt before and knows he will feel soon every time she looks at him. 

 

He leaves early the next morning, but before he can leave, the innkeeper presses a small, worn doll into his hand. “You will have a beautiful family someday, Magnus,” she says, and he smiles warmly, gently at her. 

 

“You too, Ma’am,” he hugs her and then takes off, doll in his pocket and heart content as the innkeep of Glamour Springs watches him ride off to his ruin and hopes against hope that he arrives home to the beautiful wife and unborn child he is so in love with.

 

* * *

 

Magnus spends two more nights away from home. The first he spends in the barn of a stranger's home, surrounded by their dogs and their hay even as the room they offered him stands empty and ready to house him inside. 

 

There is something in him that misses the light of the stars that twinkle at him from the night sky. Part of him remembers sleeping surrounded by the warmth of those he loves as the moon and stars keep them company on even the darkest of nights. Part of his heart remembers doing this exact thing so often that home no longer meant a place, it meant a sky full of stars and sleeping back to back with his family. Magnus can’t remember who that family was, and he can’t remember when he ever thought of the night sky as his home, but he feels homesick for it all the same.

 

Magnus is homesick for a people and a place he can't remember, but sleeping under the stars like this helps, so he sleeps out under the stars and the moons. 

 

The people who’s barn he sleeps in are pleasant, if a little bit jumpy as he asks to spend the night and tells them who he is. Their daughter takes to him like a fish to water though, so he plays with her in the garden and teaches her how to fix rips in her clothes when she find one in his shirt and he pretends not to notice the way her parents look at him like he is dying.

 

He leaves when the rooster crows in the morning before the family can see him off or ask him to stay for breakfast. He leaves several gold in the spot he had slept along with a little wooden dog for their daughter to play with and a thank you note for letting him stay. 

 

He is anxious to get home, and he has one more stop to make before he can. He has delayed enough.

 

The mother finds his gift fifteen minutes after he leaves and picks everything up with a small sigh. “My Lady Istus let him find his home whole when he gets there,” she prays, even as she knows in her heart that he won't find anything but ruins. 

 

Everyone this side of the river has heard the tales of The Hero of Raven’s Roost, after all, and at this point everyone has heard about Kalen’s revenge too. Well, almost everyone.

 

* * *

 

Magnus spends his third night on his way home at an inn one town over from his own. 

 

He is anxious to be home, but he has business with some of the townspeople here, and he had promised on his way through before to stop on his way back home. 

 

Magnus Burnsides-Waxman does not break promises. 

 

When he shows up with his tools to fix an inside door of the schoolhouse, the teacher, a friend of his named Andrew’s eyes widen for a moment before he pulls Magnus into a hard hug. 

 

There is something in the hug that Magnus can't quite understand, a feeling he gets that tickles at the back of his mind where a static he hasn't had to contend with in years makes its home. It shifts and shudders over his memories until it uncovers just a flash of loss and family and love and bone deep sorrow, but he cannot quite reach to grasp the memories or the emotions before the hug is over and Andrew pulls back. 

 

“You didn't have to come do this, Magnus,” He says, voice full of emotions that Magnus has no right to pull from his chest. 

 

“ ‘Course I did,” Magnus says gruffly, wiping at his eyes and then grinning brightly at the man across from him. He has always cried easily, even more so in the face of other’s emotions, “I made a promise, didn't I?” 

 

Andrew nods, watery eyes shining with grief and gratitude in equal measure. “Yeah, You did promise.” 

 

Magnus fixes the door in twenty minutes, and by the time he is done he has talked his way through the next twenty years of his life with Julia and their unborn child. 

 

Andrew waves goodbye as Magnus heads to his next job. Andrew watches him walk and feels as though he can’t take a proper breath as his heart constricts in his chest and a sadness settles so deep in his bones that he doesn't think he will every fully be rid of it. 

 

He turns to his husband, who had heard the whole thing from a room over, and buries his head in his chest as the tears start flowing freely again. “He has no idea,” Andrew says as his husband strokes his hair and shushes him. “He doesn't know-"

 

“Let him live in ignorant bliss for just a little longer,” Andrew's husband says. “He will know soon enough.” 

 

* * *

 

Magnus doesn't end up paying for his room at the inn that night. He doesn't pay for his meal or drinks, he doesn't pay for anything as friends of his and Julia’s treat him. 

 

It doesn’t sit right with him. 

 

He doesn't care for the sadness and the pity, he doesn't trust it when he says he is going to have a kid and they wince. He doesn't know what to think when he asks about names and they avoid the question. 

 

That night he dreams of bombs going off and the world crumbling out beneath his feet. He watches in his dreams as his wife and father-in-law fall with their beloved town and he stands on the cliffs edge of safety, paralyzed, unable to save them. 

 

He wakes up in a cold sweat with panic in his lungs and terror in his heart and leaves town before even a whisper of dawn has started to arrive. He doesn’t even glance behind him as he goes. 

 

Magnus Burnsides-Waxman arrives home to ruins. 

 

* * *

 

Julia was carrying a package to the residential corridor of the Roost when the explosions happened. Steven was in the workshop with the last order of the day. 

 

The ground shook beneath her feet as the world started listing to the right and crumbling before her eyes as she clung to the railing. There was screaming from behind her where the rest of the craftsman corridor stretched out and she knew immediately that this was not the only spot where the pillars were failing.

 

Julia could also see the stable ground of the pillar marking the entrance to the residential corridor in front of her and she knew, without a doubt in her mind, exactly what was happening. 

 

A childish part of Julia cried out that this was not a decision she was supposed to have to make. She had ended that chapter of her life when Magnus had put his hand on her arm and made her final decision of the rebellion for her. “ _ You are better than him, Julia, _ ” he had said to her as she had faced down the man who had caused all of the hurt and pain and terror of the last several years, “ _ Be better. _ ” She had left him alive, had let him leave town with nothing but the clothes on his back and his life. She would never be more grateful to Magnus than she was in that moment as she dropped her sword and realized she would never have to take another life with it.

 

The rebellion is years over now, and the city has been flourishing in the peace, and yet here she is, time seemingly frozen, with enough spell slots and a small shot to save even just a few lives on one side and stable ground within running distance on her other. 

 

She can hear the muted screaming coming from  _ her _ corridor, from  _ her  _ people _ ,  _ the people she worked  _ so hard _ to free, and she hears the echo of Magnus’s last words to her in her in her brain as she makes her decision. 

 

“ _ Lady Istus, please _ ,” she breathes out as she turns to face the screaming and runs, “ _ Let him know that he is loved. _ ”

 

* * *

 

By the time Magnus gets home, the dust has already settled over the remains of the craftsman’s corridor.

 

There is no smoke or fire. There is no still crumbling remains of half collapsed pillars, no crying or mourning, no one is frantically screaming the names of family members or friends who may never call back. Even the air seems to hold itself still and quiet as  The Roost is quiet in the aftermath of disaster and Magnus's return is little more than a drop of water slipping gently into the still waters of a peaceful pond. 

 

The ripples he makes are next to nothing compared to what has already happened.

 

Magnus can feel anxiety giving way to horror givin way to numbness as he walks to the edge of  the disaster and he fights down the urge to puke as he looks out across the piles of rubble. 

 

His home is buried in there somewhere. 

 

Magnus’s knees give out as he tries to comprehend the loss he has just sustained. Except he hasn’t just sustained it, it has been gone for weeks now and he was none the wiser. Magnus’s whole body trembles like a leaf in the wind as he tries to wrap his head around what this means, around what it all means, all the things the people have said on his way back, the way they acted, the kindness and the gentleness and the  _ sadness _ as they watched him continue on his merry way home and for what, for this? 

 

Magnus stares, unblinking into the face of disaster and it doesn't feel quite real. 

 

On some level, he feels like it doesn't matter; the death that he has brought down upon his town, the blood that this has stained his hands with (for why else would someone target the craftsmen of the roost if not to get revenge on the ones who had led the rebellion that threw him out?) is only temporary. These people will be back by the time the year is up. 

 

The rebellion taught him that this was wrong.

 

As if in a dream, he feels himself stand and turn to look at the small crowd of people who have gathered behind him and he finds that words won't leave his mouth. There are no words for the emotions in his chest, for the way he is feeling right now, the sorrow, the numbness, the anger, the pain, the remorse. Magnus looks at the people he led into battle and for the first time since they won, words have failed him.

 

A flash of red hair catches his eye and suddenly he is gasping like he hasn't had air in his lungs for years and he can't quite get enough now because the red hair he saw doesn't belong to Julia. His wife isn’t in the crowd watching him find the remnants of his home and she wasn’t with him when he went to competition.

 

Julia isn't there with him now.

 

Magnus can't see through the tears in his eyes as he looks at each face congregated around him,  desperately trying to find the words to ask where his wife is,  _ where his heart is _ , until he finally manages to choke out her name. “ _ Julia, _ ” he breathes, broken heart on display for everyone to see as he begs for his wife. “ _ Julia, _ ” he repeats, just a little stronger, just a little more desperate. 

 

The redhead from before-he thinks her name is Cameron; he thinks he has never seen her before-steps forward and reaches a small hand out to him. She shakes a little, and she doesn't say a word, but Magnus knows in his bones that he can trust her. Something tells him that, for better or for worse, she is going to lead him to his wife. 

 

Magnus takes her small hand in his-she is young, so, so young, and yet she is older than time itself as her sad eyes meet his and he thinks that, for a moment, he can see remorse underneath the heavy weight of a million lives she can't have lived-and he lets her lead him. 

 

* * *

 

In one universe, she leads him to an unmarked grave. 

 

She doesn't speak a word as she hands Magnus a single gold band and he sinks to his knees in front of the mound of earth that separates him and his wife. There are many other graves around hers, and all of them are the same. Unmarked, hasty, the product of disaster and a grief too hard to swallow coupled with a desire to just  _ go _ because no one knows if this was the last attack or not.

 

The girl is quiet and her voice timeless and trembling as she offers what small comfort she can. “She saved so many lives, Magnus. You would be  _ so proud _ of her.” 

 

Magnus doesn't sob, not yet. Instead, he thanks the girl absently as he clutches hard at the last piece of his wife that exists in the world.  _ She saved a bunch of people’s lives _ is all well and good, and Magnus  _ is  _ proud of her. He can't remember what she said to him last. 

 

He thinks he deserves to be a little selfish when it comes to grief, and he wishes one of those lives had been her own.

 

The girl steps in front of his hunched form and lowers her head just a little to place a gentle kiss on his forehead. She lingers there for a moment and murmurs against his skin, “Julia asked me to tell you that you are loved, Magnus,” and he can barely hear her but he can feel Julia's warmth sink into his skin with her words and his eyes finally start to fill with tears, “You will  _ always _ be loved, Magnus.” 

 

In one universe, Magnus collapses to the ground in front of his wife's unmarked grave and weeps for everything he has lost even as the warmth of Julia's love curls around his body and keeps him company through the night. 

 

In one universe, he marks her grave with two small circles of stones taken from the rubble of their home.  He plants in the middle of each, the seed of her favorite tree, so that even though she is gone, even though their child is gone, they will both continue to grow and change with every passing season. 

 

He does the same for Steven.

 

In that universe, the trees become the foundation for a cottage in the astral plane where she raises their daughter until the day he comes home. 

 

This is not that universe.

 

* * *

 

Magnus walks numbly after the ageless girl as she leads him to one of the largest homes in the still standing parts of the roost and he is careful not to look for the people he had known before, for his fellow craftsmen, his  _ friends _ . 

 

He knows, somehow, that he will not find them.

 

Instead he plants his eyes firmly ahead of him and focuses on making his feet move one in front of the other.  _ Julia is alive _ , he tells himself,  _ she has to be alive _ . 

 

The girl stops him outside the door to the house and they meet eyes, his desperate and searching her sad, honey-brown eyes. He knows those eyes, he thinks, because he is pretty sure those are the same ones that blink out of his own face. 

 

She reaches up with small, trembling arms and stands on her tiptoes to pull Magnus down far enough that she can reach to kiss his forehead. 

 

“For you,” she whispers, voice small but firm, warm even as it shakes with the weight of the words she delivers, “I have saved what I could.” 

 

Magnus does not understand what she means, but she is gone before he can ask and the door is opening to a haggard looking Aggie and her small daughter May. 

 

Aggie’s mouth parts in surprise for a moment before her daughter tackles him to the ground and the silence of the Roost is ruined by her scream. “ _ You came home! _ ” she weeps openly in his arms and he cant stop himself from hugging her tight as she cries. 

 

“Mag-" Aggie has her hand over her mouth as she tries not to cry, but her tears spill over anyway. “We thought-" 

 

Magnus opens his mouth to ask what they thought when the echo of heavy footsteps behind Aggie makes them both stop and a familiar voice calls out from further in the house, “Who came back, Aggie?” 

 

Magnus's brain short circuits because that is his Julia's voice, but there is something wrong. It is too rough and there is something lopsided in it as she makes her way forward. Her footsteps echo oddly and there is the clunk of a cane as she walks. 

 

When she finally emerges, Magnus doesn't care that her entire left leg is in a cast or that what he can see of her arms and neck and chest is more bruise and scrape than skin, or that her face looks like it did during the worst of the rebellion. 

 

No, magnus doesn't care because when Julia emerges from that house, she is the most beautiful sight he has ever seen, and he would win a thousand wars if that was what it took to keep her safe. 

 

“I thought I told you to come home fast,” she says, and her voice breaks over the joke. She is almost smiling and she is looking at Magnus like he is best thing she has ever seen in his life.    
  
Magnus lets out a strangled sob as he looks at her. “Thought I told you to  _ be _ safe?” he says, and his voice breaks, but he doesn’t care because she is there, she is  _ alive _ , she is  _ safe _ . 

 

Magnus and Julia leave the Roost a year later, when her leg has finally healed enough for her to adventure out again.    
  


 

They have their first child, a beautiful baby girl with Julia’s beautiful red hair and Magnus’s warm, honey-brown eyes, two years after the events of Story and Song. 

 

They name her Cameron.

**Author's Note:**

> soooo.... my taz server was talking about the fact that Magnus wouldn't have *known* about what happened at raven's roost until he got home and.... i... um.... i don't have an excuse, really. I needed to heal my ehart at the end tho, so like, there u go. 
> 
> also the little girl was, in fact, Istus, in case anyone wanted to know. <3333


End file.
